Dutch Jews reclaim precious archive

December 12, 2000 10:00am

PRAGUE, Dec. 12 (JTA) – Czech officials have presented the Dutch state archives with Jewish documents the Nazis stole from Amsterdam during World War II.

The seven boxes document Jewish life in the Netherlands from 1796 to 1942 and may have been destined for the museum of European Jewry that Hitler planned to build in Prague after he exterminated Europe’s Jews.

The documents were transported to Prague during the war. They only recently resurfaced.

The Dutch Jewish community, which is expected to take control of the documents next year, regards them as vital for interpreting Jewish religious laws.

The circumstances of the documents’ disappearance remain unclear, but they are believed to have been appropriated by Reinhard Heydrich, Hitler’s chief SS official in wartime Prague.

The archives, written in Dutch and Hebrew, include population lists, communal inventories and correspondence among the Netherlands’ Jewish communities.